company a, 276th infantry in world war ii - 70th Infantry Division

291 Pages·2002·2.47 MB·English

COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY
IN WORLD WAR II
FRANK H. LOWRY
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 94-072226
Copyright © 1991, 1994,1995 by Frank H Lowry
Modesto, California
All rights reserved
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This writing was started in 1945 in Europe following the cessation of hostilities that
brought about an end to World War II. Many of the contributors were still together and their
wartime experiences were fresh in their memories. It is the first hand account of the men of
Company A, 276th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division which made history by living
and participating in the bitter combat of the Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland and Central Europe
Campaigns. I humbly acknowledge my gratitude to the many veterans of those campaigns
who provided valuable contributions to this book. A special note of appreciation goes to the
following former soldiers of Company A who contributed significantly to this work.
Without their input and guidance, this book could not have been written.
Richard Armstrong, Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota
Russell Causey, Sanford, North Carolina
Burton K. Drury, Festus, Missouri
John L. Haller, Columbia, South Carolina
Daniel W. Jury, Millersburg, Pennsylvania
Lloyd A. Patterson, Molalla, Oregon
William J. Piper, Veguita, New Mexico
Arthur E. Slover, Salem, Oregon
Robert I. Wood, Dallas, Texas
The assistance of Edmund C. Arnold, author and Chester F. Garstki,
photographer of “The Trailblazers,” was very helpful in making it possible to illustrate and
fit the military action of Company A into the overall action of the 70th Infantry Division.
A word of thanks goes to Wolf T. Zoepf of Pinneberg, Germany for
providing significant combat information from the point of view of those soldiers who fought
on the other side.
Eddie Tsukimura of San Pedro, California and Peter W. (Tex) Bennet of
San Antonio, Texas provided the art work and sketches which vividly depict the life, moods
and experiences of the combat infantryman.
Frank H Lowry
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This work is dedicated to my comrades-in-arms, all of
those combat infantrymen of Company A, 276th
Infantry Regiment, who fought on the distant
battlefields of France and Germany in 1944 and 1945.
It is especially dedicated to the memory of those
thirty-four young men who made the supreme
sacrifice by giving their lives for the cause of freedom.
They rest forever among their fallen comrades in
graves under white crosses and stars at Epinal and St.
Avold, France and throughout the United States.
May they rest in peace.
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S/Sgt. Frank H. Lowry
Germany 1945
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CONTENTS
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. THE TRAILBLAZERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. PORT OF EMBARKATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3. USS WEST POINT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4. FRANCE -- DELTA BASE CP-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5. FORTY AND EIGHTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6. OUTPOSTING THE RHINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
7. OPERATION NORDWIND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8. WINGEN-SUR-MODER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
9. LES VOSGES - HILLS 403 AND 358 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. 19
10. LORRAINE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
11. OETING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
12. FORBACH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
13. FORAY IN THE FOREST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
14. MARCH INTO THE UNKNOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
15. VICTORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
FIFTY YEARS LATER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
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APPENDIX I
MEN OF COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION OR DIED OF WOUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
APPENDIX II
COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY REGIMENT
COMPANY ROSTER December 31,1944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
APPENDIX III
Recollections of Wolf T. Zoepf, 12th Regiment, 6th SS Mountain
Division (NORD): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 75
INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
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FOREWORD
The brotherhood of COMBAT INFANTRYMEN included a cross section
of ordinary young citizens from every corner and crossroads of the United States.
They were very young, mostly between the age of nineteen and twenty-three. They
were the weary, unshaven, mud-slogging dog face soldiers with sore feet and aching
backs. The grunts of the Army. They did not resemble the lads who a short time
before were either at home or on the farm wearing civilian clothes and perhaps
attending high school dances and football games, going to college, playing sports, or
working at their first jobs. Not only their appearances changed but their thinking
was transformed from that of paving the way for their future to that of existing in the
present. Those young men willingly made many sacrifices and put their freedoms on
hold so that they could ensure that future generations of Americans would enjoy the
freedoms made possible by the bloodshed of their forefathers.
There were many good ones and some bad ones, smart ones and a few not so
smart, doers and goldbricks, and leaders and followers. All were comrades-in-arms,
fighting together for the same end. In deadly combat, the infantryman's life depended
on the actions of his comrades and that nearly always brought out the good in
everyone. That bond or comradery is the primary reason that many an infantryman
survived under the tremendous physical and mental tensions that he was obligated to
deal with day after day. The bonds that he developed with his fellow men on the
battlefield so many years ago remain with him to the grave.
The infantryman was compelled to exist, face death and die on far away
battlefields of snow, ice, rain, mud, din and stench. He slept fitfully on the hard cold
COMPANY A 276TH INFANTRY 1 FOREWORD
ground or often in a foxhole. He exercised every means at his disposal to kill or
maim his enemy, yet he was not nor would he become a killer per se. The man who
experienced brutal combat, the smell of gunsmoke and the stench of death does not
care to see or participate in violence again. His goals were to carry out his mission
to the best of his ability, see the fighting end and return to the life he left behind. He
started out hating no one, but when he saw his best friend killed, he hated the men
who did it. After it was all over, the hate was gone. Destiny placed him where
eyeball to eyeball confrontation with the enemy took place and left him to use his
own judgment whether to fight or die, kill or be killed. Perilous situations were
commonplace but he rarely avoided them for fear of further jeopardizing the lives of
his comrades. He was more disposed to protecting his fellow men than he was to
saving his own life.
The Combat Infantryman's experiences were so horrible that when the war
was over, he wanted to totally forget about his role in the brutal carnage, death and
bloodshed. When he returned home, he refused to talk about his battle experiences
because it brought back bitter memories and he felt incapable of adequately relating
his experiences. He sensed that no words could make anyone grasp the horror and
inhumanity that was commonplace on the battlefield without their actually having
been there; not only to witness, but to experience the terror, endure the constant pain,
hear the deafening gunfire and cries of the wounded, see friends being blown to
pieces, and smell the sickening stench of the dead. Only those who have lived it can
ever know what it was truly like. The Combat Infantryman learned to fight and kill,
yet as hard as he fought, he did not return home with a chip on his shoulder. He had
his share of violence and longed to put it all in the past.
When engaged in combat, the foot soldier was only aware of the military
action that took place in his immediate proximity. Most often he had no reliable
concept of the "big picture." Seldom did he know how and to what extent his squad,
platoon or company fit into the general military objectives of the battalion, regiment,
division, corps or army. For all he knew, the entire war was taking place within a
few yards of his foxhole. The squad leader, platoon sergeant and platoon leader were
cognizant of very little more than were their men. At times those leaders were hardly
aware of enough about what was happening to effectively lead their units in
executing orders passed down to them from higher military authority.
From the time the combat soldier disembarked on foreign shores, he seldom
had access to newspapers or radios; consequently his knowledge of the progress of
COMPANY A 276TH INFANTRY 2 FOREWORD